Always Remember…

from Tumblr

“The dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible.”

- T. E. Lawrence

This is even more true of women.

Dilemma…

from tumblr

This is what goes through my mind every single time I hit the “publish” button:

Blogging is such a pain in my ass… I want to be truthful but I also don’t want to deal with hate mail from Mean Christians and misogynists. People are scary and I’m too sensitive but also I’m just trying to do right by the teenage girls who email me and tell me they’re sad because of the way society treats them. But these are First World Problems and I shouldn’t even be complaining… especially not on a blog or Facebook or Twitter because they are social networks and not platforms for my beliefs… maybe I’ll post a video of a sleepy kitty instead… 

This is why I’ve been on a blog hiatus.

I worked on a screenplay instead of dealing with my feelings.

But then I came to a conclusion (other than “screenwriting is difficult”) and it is this:

Fuck them.

I’m brave.

I have things to say.

And… I’m going to disable comments so that I don’t have to deal with lurking trolls…

SO, please, please, please email me (thanks to the lovely girls/women who already have!) at missbunnysunday@hotmail.com 

AND please, please, please tweet me (thanks to my followers!) @missbunnysunday 

I’ll answer your questions, I’ll give you advice about witchy stuff and I’ll probably mention Frida Kahlo…

And if you feel called, visit The Shop, Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook and watch the Youtube videos I like…

¡Adiós Señoritas!

Apologies

My posts have become infrequent due to a slight existential crisis which involves me writing a script that will remain nameless for reasons that are vague… I think everybody can relate to that.

If you’re going through an existential crisis of your own, I recommend reading Sylvia Plath quotes.

I could read Sylvia Plath until my skin turns to dust and my soul joins hers in the underworld.

That sentence was very Sylvia-esque.

But not nearly as good.

C’est la vie.

Hawaii in the Movies

Can this just be my life please?

If you’re a regular around this blog, you know that my dream in life is to move to Hawaii. Alas, I’m stranded in the Canadian wilderness (and by wilderness I mean city) so I have to make due with celluloid sand and surf. Here are my favourite movies set in Hawaii in no particular order:

1. Blue Crush

Sanoe Lake (far right) was born in Kauai, which just hapens to be the island where I plan to live.

I saw Blue Crush when I was 13 and immediately hatched a plan to move to Hawaii after high school. My one regret in life is not doing exactly that. Personal history aside… Blue Crush is part of a rare and elusive movie genre: the feminist chick flick. Also, after watching Kate Bosworth’s stunt double surf giant waves, I like to ask everyone in sight (including cats) the ultimate question, “Do you think you can surf it for real?” DO YOU… DO YOU??? The movie is based on one of the best pieces of travel writing ever.

2. Lilo and Stitch

Ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten. I have a Stitch stuffed animal. He sits on my bookshelf and looks awesome. My cat has a crush on him. No big deal.

3. 50 First Dates

I know it’s a stupid Adam Sandler movie, but it’s a stupid Adam Sandler movie that makes me makes me cry. Every. Single. Time. She just can’t remember anything…  gah… I want to eat fried Spam at the Hukilau Cafe and make waffle cabins with Drew Barrymore. EVERY MORNING.

4. The Descendants

My favourite movie of all time. So. Damn. Good.

5. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I saw this 5 times in the theatre (I was going through a bad breakup.) Forgetting Sarah Marshall is fucking funny. Mila Kunis is gorgeous. What more do you want?

6. Soul Surfer

Hercules on a surfboard!

This is a super cheesy biopic about Bethany Hamilton, a pro surfer who’s arm was severed in a shark attack when she was 14-ish. Ok… so real-life Bethany Hamilton is probably the toughest person alive, but this movie isn’t exactly good. HOWEVER, you get to see Helen Hunt, Dennis Quaid and Hercules himself in the roles of ridiculously tanned parental surf rats. Also… there are some seriously over-emphasized Christian undertones that I find campy and hilarious. And Carrie Underwood (who’s a terrible actor btw) plays a youth minister. What? I know. Come for the scenery, stay for the so-terribly-cheesy-it-circles-back-to-good moment when Bethany realizes God has a plan for her (spoiler alert: God likes it when people get their arms bitten off by sharks.)

Anyways, those are my recommendations for visiting Hawaii from the comfort of your futon. Or couch, if you’re one of those people.

Happy International Women’s Day!

How should you celebrate International Women’s Day?

1. Call your mother, sister, daughter, mentor, hero or friend.

2. Donate to V-Day and end violence against women and girls.

3. Read amazing literature written by women. I suggest Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath and Hayden Herrera (who wrote the biography of Frida Kahlo.)

4. Look at photos of your feminist heroes. Be inspired. Example:

The young man standing on the far left in the suit is Frida Kahlo. She liked to wear mens clothes sometimes. Pretty brave for a 20 year-old Mexican woman in the early 1930's.

5. Break up with your shitty boyfriend.

6. Wear a dress. Feel grateful that you’re wearing it by choice. Some women’s aren’t so lucky.

7. Stand up for what you believe in. Don’t want to have babies? Don’t believe in marriage? Support LGBT rights? Say it. Out loud. To other people.

8. Masturbate

9. Rent a movie with a strong female lead. Feel angry that there are only like 5 of them.

10. Look into gender politics in your area. Find out about your abortion, sexual health and birth control rights. These things matter.

11. Look into the rights of women in other countries. The Congo is a good place to start. Read Nicholas Kristof’s articles. Here’s a good one on reproductive rights in Texas. Excerpt:

“The state of Texas is waging war on women and their families,” Dr. Boyd added. “The new law is demeaning and disrespectful to the women of Texas, and insulting to the doctors and nurses who care for them.”

12. Get mad. Get PISSED. Then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Donate. Write a blog post. Petition your local government. Volunteer at a women’s shelter. Mentor a girl. Stop watching reality TV. Take off your makeup. Refuse to be silent.

13. Be kind. Be brave. Be strong.

Inspiring Woman of the Week: Christina of Sweden

Christina

Christina was the daughter of a hero-king and a queen who was bat-shit crazy. When her father was killed in battle, her mother refused to allow him to buried, keeping his coffin in her room and often embracing his rotting corpse. Once the burial took place (many months later) she kept his heart in a jar… and slept with it. Christina’s mother also decided to cover the windows and re-decorate the castle in all-black, forcing the entire court to live a mole-like existence.

Yep. That happened.

Knowing that his wife was totally insane, King Gustav II left the kingdom to Christina with instructions that she was to receive the education of a prince, including swordsmanship and hunting. Fortunately, Christina was extremely intelligent. She could speak several languages and dreamed of making Stockholm the “Athens of the North.”

Christina’s intelligence made up for her less-than-attractiveness… to put it nicely. When her mother was pregnant, the astrologers predicted the baby would be a boy. In fact, for a few days after her birth, the royal doctors swore that Christina was a boy, either due to a birth defect or her strong temperament. As she grew up, Christina’s took on a distinctly masculine appearance. Her nose and jawline were pronounced and her gait and voice were considered to be masculine. Adding to her “unfortunate” appearance were her uneven shoulders. Her mother (or the nurse, depending on the story) dropped Christina when she was an infant, breaking one of her shoulder blades. The injury made one shoulder higher than the other. Christina was undeniably masculine, the furthest thing from the demure, dainty lady she was supposed to be.

Christina didn’t mind.

She decided to wear men’s clothes, keep her hair unfashionably short and forego all lady-like manners. She focused on the masculine pastimes she loved: riding, fighting, math and hunting. She surrounded herself with educated men and avoided the topics of marriage and children at all costs.

Rumours began to spread.

People said she was a man, a hermaphrodite and a lesbian. Christina did nothing to dispel these rumours. She spoke openly about never wanting to marry or have children. She amassed a huge collection of paintings, many depicting female nudes. She wrote love letters to men and women. She even stated that the idea of having sex with a man repulsed her.

One day, Ebba Sparre came to court from France.

Ebba

Beautiful Ebba became Christina’s favourite lady-in-waiting. The Queen gave her the nickname “Belle” and the two were soon rumoured to be lovers. In fact, Christina was so possessive of her lady-in-waiting that when Ebba showed an interest in a particular gentleman, Christina forced her to marry someone else. The man Ebba ended up marrying was not only a bad match, but someone Ebba really disliked.

Christina soon decided to abdicate the throne. Trading her crown for freedom, and leaving poor Ebba behind, she travelled across Europe and lived her remaining years in Rome. She was surrounded by scandal and intrigue until the very end.

In recent years, Christina has become a gay and feminist icon, celebrated by many for her non-conformist lifestyle.

So, the moral of the story is: fuck what other people think.

And Sweden is awesome.

If you’d like to learn more about Christina, this Wikipedia article looks to be correct. There’s also an extensive biography, that I reviewed here.

She’s one of my favourite people. Her and Frida would have totally been lovers, had they been on the planet at the same time.

 

What’s Making Me Happy This Week

How awesome is this painting!?

This beautiful poem was written by one of the actresses on One Tree Hill (which I’ve never seen.) I love it when people aren’t who you think they are. Actress on the CW and super talented writer… I live for surprises.

“Dear Oscar: Women Have Stories, Too”  on the Oscars and they’re lack of vaginas.

We all need to let go of our childhoods. They were all uniquely terribly but we are grown-ups now. It’s time to move on.

I’ve been reading The Inner Temple of Witchcraft by Christopher Penczak. It’s fantastic. If you’re interested in energy work, intuition or enhancing your mental abilities, this is the book for you. Plus, some amazing witches on Youtube have been vlogging their way through it.

Frida Kahlo fun facts! Learn the basics of La Gran Ocultadora in a few minutes: Here and Here.

The Hello Giggles kitty cam is adorable! A live stream of a mama kitty and her babies!

Magazine Articles to Read Online

via weheartit.com

This is one of the best pieces of magazine writing I’ve ever come across. It inspired the movie Blue Crush and it’s a fantastic look at Hawaiian surf culture and the girls who are raised in it.

This is an interesting article on Frida Kahlo from a feminist website.

This is a National Geographic article on the book/film Into the Wild, about the travels and untimely death of Christopher McCandless. Into the Wild is one of my favourite books EVER.

Leap Year Myths and Superstitions

I don't know what the pictorial equivalent of Leap Day is, but I'm assuming this is close.

Today is Leap Day!

The 29th of February has a feminist history that dates back to the Middle Ages. Historically, Leap Day was the only day when a woman could propose marriage to a man. If the man refused her, he’d have to buy her a substantial gift, like a donkey or a pretty dress (I’m guessing.) Aside from marriage, Leap Days were considered to be a time when gender roles were reversed and women were sexually liberated for 24 hours.

The moral of this story is that Leap Day should really be called “Female Orgasm Day.”

So, why don’t you go celebrate.

NOW.

In Defence of Cute: Part 1

It’s no secret that I’m more Wednesday Addams than Zooey Deschanel. I’m always preaching about alternative lifestyles and different points of view. I think girls should aspire to something greater than “cuteness.” It’s not what I find attractive in a woman and, more importantly, I think it’s a dangerous ideal being forced upon innocent girl-babies. I’m decidedly non-traditional and I’ll scream at the top of my lungs about the beauty of Frida Kahlo’s unibrow or the power of Christina Hendricks’ hips. If you read my blog, you know this.

That being said, I think people should be who they are. And who people are is rarely as simple as cute or tough or weird. To quote Andy Warhol:

If everybody’s not a beauty, then nobody is.

I’m getting really tired of reading girl-hating articles WRITTEN BY GIRLS about how actresses like Zooey Deschanel are horrible people because they wear flouncy skirts and like baby animals. It’s ridiculous. A woman who wears pink and talks in a little-girl voice can ALSO be a badass daughter of a bitch. The two are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, the show New Girl, with none other than Zooey Deschanel, addressed the “cute issue” in a recent episode:

Definitely watch the whole episode. It’s a great comment on women and friendship. There’s a scene where Jess basically says, “I can wear polka dots and like cute things AND be just as tough as you.” Then later, Julia admits that she’s not as tough as she seems. The episode ends with all of the girls hanging out together.

Who would of thought you’d see 3-dimensional characters and a feminist comment on a half-hour sitcom on network television.

That is the power of cute.

Btw, Hello Giggles, the adorably named site founded by Zooey Deschanel, Sophia Rossi and Molly McAleer is my favourite spot on the interwebs.

Those girls are adorable AND smart as fuck.